06 September 2013

Favourite Books List ~ Ancients

I've had a few people ask what books we'd recommend for Ancients for their students and instead of typing up what I liked, I thought I'd ask the children what they have enjoyed reading so far. (Now updated to include the rest of the years titles)
(We've just begun reading about Ancient Rome ... I'll update again once we've finished those last few weeks of reading).

For those looking for Ancients based literature - I'd recommend you take a look at Veritas Press' selection in their catalog , and Biblioplan's line up.
There are many other sites/brochures/lists about but those are the easiest choices for me to link, late, on a Friday night ☺

Listing the children's favourite chapt bks, readers & read alouds.

Jay (13)
Favoured Read Alouds:
R/A   10: The Cat of theBubastes ~ Henty    (audio book)
R/A   18: God King ~ Williamson
R/A   18: Famous Men of Greece     (using as  individual reading)

R/A   23: Within the Palace Gates …. ~ Siviter     (Excellent Book! Caution for sensitive children)
R/A   23: D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths (audio book.  wished we’d had the book)
 
R/A    30: Quo Vadis ~ Sienkiewicz  (contains very mature, adult, themes!!  We read this together & discussed those issues as we went along. One key topic was love is verb, not a feeling!  Feelings come and go.)

Jay really enjoyed Julius Caesar ~ Shakespeare.  That play kicked off a Shakespeare fest - with both children watching as many of the BBC produced history plays (King XYZ) that they could find on youtube.  Those they couldn't find as recorded productions Jay read ☺
Favoured Readers:
5: Gifted Hands ~ Carson
8: Pharoahs of Ancient Egypt ~ Payne
8: Do Hard Things ~ Harris
13: J.R.R Tolkien books 
15: The Well of Sacrifice ~ Eboch    (Aztecs. Americas tie-in.  Not for sensitive children)
18: Exploring the World of Biology  ~ Tiner
19: Tales of the Dead: Ancient Greece   (rivalry at the Olympic Games)

20: Boys With No Names ~ Sheth  (India tie-in)
( recommend !! parent pre-reads before handing to your student)
21: Cyrus the Persian ~ Sherman A. Nagel     (not for sensitive children, NEEDS editing!!)

27: Famous Men of Rome     (using as individual reading)
30: The Luke Reports ~ Focus on the Family (audio)
34: For the Temple ~ Henty (read by Jim Weiss)

Daisy (11)
Favoured Read Alouds:
R/A  10: Hittite Warrior ~ Williamson  (SL G)
R/A  21: Cyrus the Persian ~ Sherman A.Nagel  (not for sensitive children, NEEDS editing!!)
R/A  23: Within the Palace Gates …. ~ Siviter   
(Excellent Book! Same advise as Nagel’s book!)

R/A  23: D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths  (audio book … wished we’d had the book) 

R/A    30: Quo Vadis ~ Sienkiewicz  (contains very mature, adult, themes!!  We read this together & discussed those issues as we went along. One key topic was love is verb, not a feeling!  Feelings come and go.)
Favoured readers:
1: The Magician's Nephew ~ Lewis 

8: Adventures in Ancient Egypt ~ Bailey
10: Tirzah ~ Travis
12: The Dragon of Lonely Island ~ Rupp  (China etc)  (& the sequel)
12: Adventures in Ancient China  ~ Bailey
19: Adventures in Ancient Greece ~ Bailey

27: Mystery of the Roman Ransom ~ Winterfeld
27: Roman Mysteries (some of) ~ Lawrence (audio series)
28: 
Classics Illustrated: Julius Caesar   (tie-in to our Shakespeare play)

29: Detectives in Togas ~ Winterfeld
29: Ancient Oceans Blue (audio book)
30: The Luke Reports (FoTF radio drama)
summer time listen: The Girl of the Limberlost ~ Porter (the mother in this book is initially awful!  recommend parents pre-view!  We all enjoyed this book, yes even Dn & Jay ☺☺) 

She also enjoyed:
-  the You Wouldn’t Want To Be  books
Cat Mummies by Kelly Trumble
A few of the Horrible Histories books (caution required for some!!)
Pharoah’s Handbook ~ Usborne
-  Aesop's Fables (various but this one is a favourite)
And lots of other books from the library that I didn't detail as we went along, or are off our own shelves and are, sadly, out of print.

2 comments:

reader19 said...

You mentioned your library---I wonder if your library in NZ is like our library? There is a huge difference between the library we had in southern IN to the one we have now in Brownsburg---huge! I'm happy to say we have moved to a much better funded library now!! What is a NZ library like? Can you request practically any book to be borrowed and brought in for you to use? Will they buy books you ask for? And details to share???

Chelle said...

@ Tracy,
Our local library is good! They will easily get books in for us, from other libraries, and have a rather good audio (download) library :-)
The book buying side of things is subjective to the book buyer .. we can suggest, but that doesn't usually happen.

As a home educator we have access to loaning books from the National Library, which is not available to the general public. They can access the books from there too but need to go through a school/educational establishment, or a library.

Just pop over and I'll take you around to library browsing ;)